Dino Diggers

Is there any match as perfect as toddlers and dinosaurs? They go together like peanut butter and jelly! This would explain the huge sign-up I had for last week's Dino Digger's program, for ages 2-5.

We started off the program with a story-- just one. It was hard to choose which I wanted to read. Because I was only doing one, I kind of wanted a true story book, but I wanted it to be short and easy enough so that even the youngest kids in the group would get something out of it. There are a lot of great dinosaur books, but I wound up picking Roar by Todd H. Doodler, which I'd used (with success) for pre-school visits some years ago. I think everyone enjoyed it, although I'm not sure if they enjoyed it more than they would have enjoyed, say, Dinosaur Vs. Bedtime, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?, The Super Hungry Dinosaur, or Dini Dinosaur. There are a few good class-roaring opportunities throughout Roar, so it's got that really big perk going for it. (Nevermind the fact that I had a sweet boy afraid of loud noises. Details, details.)

After the book, I opened the room up for a sort of "free play." I had several different activities available and about 30-minutes for children and caregivers to make their way around the room to try it all out.

There were:

-- Two sand bins with sifters and dinosaur skeletons buried for the kids to dig around in *

-- Several dinosaur puzzles

-- A volcano picture made by blowing watered down paint through a straw **

-- A trace-a-dino-footprint worksheet ***

-- Dino eggs to inspect and match up with their corresponding pictures ****

* The sand bins and the dinosaur skeletons are things we own and have on hand. We don't use them very often but when we do, they are always, always, always a big hit. It was time to break them out again and, as usual, they were awesome.

** I got the idea for this craft from Pinterest-- specifically, it came from OurLittleAcorns.com. I had pre-cut volcanoes (although my coworker commented that they looked like poops), watered down red and orange paint with straws for blowing, and these puffy dinosaur stickers, which were cool, though smaller than I'd anticipated. This craft was fun, but way too hard for the younger crew. In fact, I tried it at home with Sadie (who's 2½) and she liked doing it in theory, but was kind of clueless and not really strong enough, physically, to blow the paint around through the straw. The stickers though, now those were easy and fun for her. On the other hand, the 4ish-year-olds in the class had great success with blowing the paint!

*** The trace a dino footprint worksheets can be found here, on PagingSuperMom.com. I printed a stack and a few kids did them. I also took one home for Sadie and she liked it!

**** The dino eggs were fun! I borrowed these from our county's lending library. They are a total mystery to me. I seriously have no idea how they were made but they're really cool looking! Basically, they're colorful plastic dinosaurs living inside Easter egg-sized, clear plastic homes, with a texture similar to that of a fancy, un-started bar of soap. To go with them, I made some match-up sheets to encourage the kids to examine the eggs and play with them a little. I think it worked pretty well.

This is a picture I took of the eggs and sheets a long time ago. I have since lost my original sheets and the eggs got a little cloudier. But this really gets the idea across:

Some "egg-xamining" in action below. The boy pictured was so smart! Instead of matching the eggs with the pictures, he wrote down the name of every type of dinosaur! I told him that was the "advanced way" to do this activity.

What worked least: As a whole, this was a great program (that I received a lot of great feedback about!) but it's true that the paint blowing craft was probably better for the 4+-ers of the group and not the younger kids. Even despite this, the younger ones watched their parents/caregivers blow the paint and still enjoyed the sticker scene aspect of the craft, so I'm not sure I'd have even changed anything in retrospect!

What worked best: The sand. It's always all about the sand.

Instrument Exploration

Since having kids of my own, I have really grown to love a good self-directed program. They're relaxed, fun, and a good chance for parents to get out and chat, without feeling like they're disrupting something. I like to take my kids to these types of programs too because it gives us a chance to hang out and play together with different, stimulating, age-appropriate things that we don't have at home. So we have more fun!

Last summer, while on maternity leave, I went to a weekly program at a nearby library called "Baby Shake, Rattle, and Roll." It was for ages birth through 2 and it was basically just a bunch of music-ish type sensory stuff out around the room for the kids to play with. It was drop-in style for two hours and people came and went throughout the duration of the program. Totally unstructured and totally fun! 

Shortly after I got back to work, I put in to do my own version of this program and yesterday, I did it! Here's what I had out:

From left to right: Orange "baby bells", 5 sensory tubes, rhythm sticks, tambourines, drums and drum sticks, manipulative fidget disks, colorful egg shakers, green wrist bells, yellow shakers, and triangles and beaters. Many of the things my library already owned for Musical Kids, though some of it I almost never use (e.g. the triangles), and a few of the things I got from our county library system's lending library.

At "Baby Shake, Rattle, and Roll" there was sometimes music playing and sometimes not. I think it just depended on who set it up that morning. I preferred when it was there, though we totally had fun either way. I always like to play music in my programs, but I didn't want the music to detract from the kids instrument playing. So, I wound up making a very specific playlist of songs that were somewhat rhythmic, varied in tempo, and sort of backgroundy, if that makes any sense at all. A few prime examples of things on this playlist were songs from the second half of the Moana soundtrack (disc 2, mostly instrumental) and songs from the We Bought a Zoo soundtrack (100% made up of Sigor Ros/Jónsi songs, which I guess, I'd sort of describe melodic ambient rock?). 

In the end though, my playlist didn't matter at all. The room was so loud-- buzzing with percussion and chatter-- you could hardly hear the music anyway. I think having it was definitely good; everyone could kind of feel the underlying beat, but my specific song obsessing? Not at all necessary. I could have just put the whole ipod and shuffle and called it a day.

Here are a few pictures from the program:

What worked least: The age range. I made this for kids 0-5 because I figured that the self-directedness could leave it open to be adapted for nearly anyone, but I think I probably should have capped it at 3. The room was packed and most of the stuff was probably better for the kids on the younger side of this range. There was a 4-year-old who made a quick appearance and left shortly after and I'm pretty sure it was because she felt too old. (Then there were also a few 4-year-olds who loved it though, so, eh, who even knows?)

Another thing to mention: The room was really really really loud. If I ever do this again, I'd try to hold it in a larger room. It was a lotta volume in a little space.

What worked best: There weren't a lot elements to this program to "work" and "not work," but I definitely left feeling like it was success. I think the manipulative fidget disks got the most attention. The younger ones mushed and squished them (aka used them for their intended purpose), and the older ones enjoyed stacking them on their heads! This was one of the items that I borrowed from our county lending library and I'm so glad that I did! I'm planning to get them again for a program this summer.

Overall, this was a simple and fun program with a great turnout-- 37 patrons!

Concepts For Kids

Throwback post! Now that I am totally back on a roll with blogging, I thought it would be a good time to write about a program I did back in November but never blogged about called Concepts For Kids-- admittedly not my most creatively named program, but fun and definitely worth the blog post.

Concepts for Kids is really just a very specific version of an ongoing program I did for a long time (but stopped about a year ago) called Books n Play for Pre-K. Each week, in Books n Play for Pre-K, I would do a different theme--anything from winter to colors to food to dinosaurs. Generally, the time was broken down like this:

~15-20 minutes: Hello song, two/three books, two/three songs
~15-20 minutes: Open play time with craft table and activity table (with music playing)
~5-10 minutes: One more book or song, Goodbye song

I modified my plan a little for Concepts for Kids, but at its heart, this was the same program, except with four very specific weekly themes: Colors, Numbers, Letters, Shapes. You know, concepts!

Here's a week-by-week breakdown of the books, songs, crafts, and toys that I used each week:

Week 1 – Theme: Colors

Books:
Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh
Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin

Song:
Picked a Strawberry (not color-related but fun Pete the Cat tie-in!)*

Craft Table:
1. Color hand prints**
2. Rainbow print outs + dot markers
3. Thanksgiving turkey craft ***

Activity Table:
1. Farm sorting (similar to this)
2. Bee hive game (seen below)
3. Rainbow discs-- CDs with flashlights ****
4. Light table with colored blocks (seen below)

* Picked a Strawberry: This is a cute song that comes from--you guessed it--Jbrary! It's not a color song but it's just SO perfect for pairing with Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes that I broke the rules and sang it during the color-themed week anyway! Here it is:

** Colored Hand Prints: These are an ongoing craft favorite of mine, but (in my opinion) too simple to be a stand-alone activity. However every time I have a colored-themed-anything, for preschool aged kids, this one makes an appearance. It's totally simple. The picture below sums it up nicely, I think.

And this picture, seen below, is the one I found online years ago that originally inspired this activity:

*** Thanksgiving turkey craft: This one was a total last minute add-on when one of my other crafts fell through (due to my supply-checking negligence). I made the simple template seen below, and had the kids color it, cut it out, and glue on pre-cut feathers that I made from construction paper. It was nice and I think people enjoyed having something to do for Thanksgiving.

**** Rainbow discs: These were literally just some old CDs with flashlights to shine on them-- nothing fancy at all. I borrowed everything from our library system in a big Science Buddies kit (that came with other things too, including the light table seen above), but any CDs and flashlights would work just fine! Parents and kiddies enjoyed shining the flashlights on the CDs and exploring the rainbows that were made together. It's a cute, quick, age-appropriate little science experiment!

Week 2 – Theme: Numbers

Books:
Dog’s Colorful Day by Emma Dodd
10 Little Kittens by Megan Borgert-Spaniol

Song:
Five Little Monkeys

Craft Table:
1. Dogs Colorful Day sheets and dot markers *
2. Cotton ball cloud gluing collage **
3. Flower petal finger paint counting sheets ***

Activity Table:
1. Early Math Activity Center (this from Lakeshore Learning)
2. Peg boards (these from Lakeshore Learning)
3. Smart Snacks Number Pops (these from Oriental Trading)
4. Dough boards (seen below)

* Dogs colorful day sheets and dot markers: These were were simple and fun and have been a hit time and time again. They can be downloaded here and seen below:

** Cotton ball cloud gluing collage: Using the picture below (which I made quickly in Publisher), I had the kids glue cotton balls on the clouds and then count them. Also, of course, color the sheets. Basically, I left this totally open ended since the parents were doing it side-by-side with their kids. I figured they could make of it whatever they wanted!

*** Flower petal finger paint counting sheets: I made this craft myself (see below), again using Publisher, but totally stole the idea from this unattainable link on Pinterest.

The idea was to finger paint the correct number of flower petals one each stem. This craft was a little less obviously open-ended than the cotton ball cloud gluing collage, but the kids and parents made of it what they wanted anyway... which is always ok! Here are some hand-printing twins:

Week 3 – Theme: Letters

Books:

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr.
ABC T-Rex by Bernard Most

Song:
ABCs with parachute and balls *

Craft Table:
1. Letter Stampers + paper (these from Learn365) **
2. Letter foam stickers + foam sheets (similar to these from Oriental Trading) **
3. Letter stencils with pictures that match + paper (these from Oriental Trading) **

Activity Table:
1. Dough boards (like the number ones used above, but letters!)
2. Play dough and letter-shaped cookie cutters
3. Melissa & Doug ABC Letter puzzles (these from Amazon)

* ABCs with parachute and balls: This is pretty self-explanatory, but a little funny. I had a hard time coming up with a song this week at first. I kept thinking, "why aren't there any good songs about the alphabet?" And then I remembered there's a VERY FAMOUS song about the alphabet that kids this age all know and are happy to sing. So, to make things a little extra exiting, we bounced balls around in the parachute as we sang the ABCs together. Everyone liked it!

** This picture shows all 3 crafts for this week at once! So all-encompassing!

Week 4 – Theme: Shapes

Book:
Perfect Square by Michael Hall *

Song: 

A Circle is a Shape **

Craft Table:
1. Gluing collage craft with pre-cut shapes
2. Shape stencils + colored pencils and paper (these from Oriental Trading)
3. Shape worksheet ***

Activity Table:
1. Flower magnets ****
2. Shape sorting bins (similar to these)
3. Blocks

* Perfect Square by Michael Hall: This wound up being the only book that we read for our last week of Concepts For Kids. I wound up with a younger, more restless group this week and decided to call it quits after only one story because there was just no way they were sitting through another. To be honest, I had a hard time choosing my second book for the week anyway and wasn't 100% happy with my choice in the end, so it was just as well!

** A Circle is a Shape: This is to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus and, yet again, comes from our friends at Jbrary. Here it is:

*** Shape worksheet: While, I guess, this was a bit half-hearted, I wanted a simple, age-appropriate activity to partner with college and stencils and this fit the bill. This is the sheet that I used:

**** Flower magnets: The kit we have can be found here (although I have no idea where we originally found it!) and the kids always seem to really like making their own little flower garden. Check out how the flowers in the second picture match the chart in the first picture! 👏👏

What worked least: This program just didn't wind up getting the kind of attendance I'd hoped for. Ranging from 2-6 kids per week, it required lots and lots of planning and set up, for a minimal reward. I'm not sure that there's anything I would change about the program itself, just maybe try it at a different (morning) time in the future.

What worked best: The craft/activity time was certainly the highlight of each week. In fact, I sort of felt like the kids were just politely sitting through my (relatively short!) story time so we could get to the good stuff. I think the open play format really works for toddlers.

Books n Play for Pre-K 9/28/16

I haven't written about a session of Books n Play for Pre-K in SO long, and since this week's class was my last one for a while, I decided that it was time for a post.

I've written about this program many times in the past, but I've never blogged about my dinosaurs theme before! Coincidentally, this week's theme was just that... dinosaurs! A real crowd-pleaser, I must say. My group was small--only six kids--but they were a really great, attentive, and rule-following six kids (unlike how they were the last time I blogged about Books n Play for Pre-K), so I was happy!

As usual, I opened the program with our Hello Song (still, as always, A New Way to Say Hello by Big Jeff), and then I moved on to books and songs. The first book I read was The Super Hungry Dinosaur by Martin Waddell (which I read with a raspy, throat-hurty dinosaur voice, obviously), and then Dini Dinosaur by Karen Beaumont. The kids liked both, definitely, but I'd actually go as far as to say that they loved The Super Hungry Dinosaur. The whole room was completely attentive as I read it, totally engaged!

Then we sang a song that I found online called All Around the Swamp. Basically it's a dinosaurs version of Wheels on the Bus. I modified it a tiny bit and this is what we wound up singing:

The Pteranodon's wings went FLAP, FLAP, FLAP… All around the swamp.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex said GRRR, GRRR, GRRR… All around the swamp.
The Triceratops’s horns went POKE, POKE, POKE… All around the swamp.
The Stegosaurus tail went SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE… All around the swamp.

The kids were very eager to move onto our crafts and play time. I had a lot of good stuff for them this week, if I do say so myself. As usual, this part of the program lasted for about 20-25-minutes. Here's what I had out:

The craft table:

1. "Fossil" making (aka play dough and a bunch of shells) *
2. Construction paper, crayons, and colorful, foam dinosaur stickers to make a prehistoric scene (see picture below)
3. Stuff to make the Stegosaurus Puppet from this set of free printable dinosaur puppets on PagingSuperMom.com.
4. Trace a Dino Footprint free printable, also from PagingSuperMom.com

And here's what was at the toy table:

1. Sand box and dinosaur fossils to dig up**
2. Dinosaur puzzles
3. Dinosaur "eggs" + matching sheets and crayons ***
4. Dinosaur bones kit + matching and measuring cards ****

* Fossil making with play dough and shells is one of my favorite prehistoric activities. It's a true process over product kind of craft and I like how it's just totally different from the usual coloring or drawing. For this, all I put out were shells, play dough, and paper plates (which you don't really even need if your tables are covered). It's pretty self-explanatory, I guess:

The kids liked this and I think the little siblings might have liked it even more. Plus, it's a good sensory activity!

** I've used the sandbox (and other sensory bins) a bunch of times before in Books n Play for Pre-K and usually, the whole program basically revolves completely around it. Like, the kids eye it before the play time starts and pretty much have to be peeled away from it after it ends. Thank goodness we have covers for these bins or I would have no control at all in the room. Here is some quality dino diggin':

Coupled with the sandbox, I used this Dino-Dig Excavation Kit from Lakeshore Learning. Because our sandbox isn't exactly huge (and neither was our group of kids), I only buried 8 dinosaur skeletons for the kids to dig up and, since they're so young, I didn't even bother with the paint brushes.

*** The dinosaur “eggs” I had are a total mystery to me. I seriously have no idea how they were made (or why they smell kind of funny), but I got them on loan from our county library system and they're really cool! Basically, they're colorful plastic dinosaurs living inside Easter egg-sized, clear plastic homes, with a texture similar to that of an un-started bar of soap. To go with them, I made some match-up sheets to encourage the kids to examine the eggs and play with them a little. I think it worked pretty well, although only one or two kids wound up doing it.

Some "egg-xamining" in action:

**** The dinosaur bones kit + matching and measuring cards were also a loan from our county library system. They're super-cool, but didn't get a ton of attention during the program (but, to be fair, they were competing with a sand box). Basically I received a canvas bag filled with pretty realistic-seeming (both in weight and in texture) dinosaur bones and some cool cards to match them up with to make different dino parts or measure the different bones. STEM central.

At the end of play/craft time, I wrapped up with one more book: Dinosaur Vs. The Library by Bob Shea, which went over ALMOST as well as The Super Hungry Dinosaur, but nottttt quite.

What worked least: I don't know if there was really anything in this program that I'd say "didn't work", per-say. It was really a great group! However, I think for the amount of time and brain-power that I spent trying to find and learn All Around the Swamp, it wasn't super-appreciated. Mostly the kids were ready to move on to the toys and crafts at this point. But now that it's in my repertoire, I'm happy to have it. So no big deal!

What worked best: The Super Hungry Dinosaur by Martin Waddell was SUCH a hit! I highly recommend it for the ages 3-5 crowd! They seriously adored it.

Books n Play for Pre-K 1/27/16: A Mixed Bag

Yay, Books n Play for Pre-K! I've written about this program so many times before but it's different every time that I do it and sometimes, the mood strikes and I just straight up wanna write about it again. Wednesday's group was, quite literally, the young and the restless. I had a chatty collection of moms and a justtttt barely eligible collection of kids. It wasn't my smoothest of programs, but I'm really proud of the cool stuff I did and I wanted to show it off. And also, I write about successful programs a lot. And unfortunately, once in a while, one isn't as successful, and those programs deserve attention too (maybe even more attention, really). So, without further ado... Books n Play for Pre-K, 1/27/16, AKA Books n Play for Pre-K, A Mixed Bag:

Wednesday's theme was colors. I leaned on some book stand-bys this week, although I did try out a brand new song, thanks to TeachingMama.org. As usual, first up was our Hello Song (still A New Way to Say Hello by Big Jeff... always A New Way to Say Hello by Big Jeff), and then I read Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd (coupled with corresponding "spots" that I made [contact paper covered card stock with tape for sticking] and our adorable Golden Retriever puppet from Folkmanis). Then I read Pete the Cat, I Love My White Shoes by James Dean. The kids were SO good during these books--super-smart and good at counting, singing, and color identification. A PLEASURE, despite being the young and the restless. For my song, I introduced the color song, an adorable find from TeachingMama.org. It's not only cute and easy-to-pick-up-on, it's interactive too! Here's how it goes:

I had the kids put their fingers on their heads, smile, frown, etc. I'm not sure if they all got the concept entirely, but either way, everyone had fun. Here they are stomping with all their might:

Then it was time to break off for 20-minutes or so of crafts and play. Here's where the chaos started. This is usually the highlight of the program for many of the kids, and maybe it's because of that that I have high expectations for myself regarding what kinds of stuff I put out...and maybe it's because of THAT, that I get annoyed when it's more chaotic than it should be. So when, for whatever the reason, the kids were super antsy, I found this part of the program to be just really frustrating.

Here's what was at the craft table:

1. Dog from Dog's Colorful Day coloring sheets and do-a-dot markers (see below) *
2. Pete the Cat, I Love My ____ Shoes coloring sheets (similar to the ones that can be downloaded here)
3. Blank rainbows printed on card stock + water colors, paint brushes, and water
4. Hand print color mixing (as seen here from De Mello Teaching) (see below) **

And here's what was at the toy table:

1. Early Math Activity Jars from Lakeshore, set up for sorting the balls by color (see below) ***
2. Colorful wood blocks
3. Color sneaker matching game from MessForLess.net
4. Chromatography Science Experiment! (see below) ****

* The Dog's Colorful Day print-outs are from MakeLearningFun.com. I put these out with dot markers (like these), so the kids could dot-up dog like in the book. Whenever I use these print-outs, I always think "eh, just an easy extra thing to put out," but then, they wind up being one of the kids' favorite activities! That knowledge alone should teach me to keep it simple (but it doesn't). Anyway, the kids love using the dot markers! And I think the story-tie-in makes this one especially exciting for them. Also, the dot markers are pretty un-messy so we all like that! Here's some pictures of dotting fun:

** The hand print color mixing has been hit or miss. I've had success with it in the past, but on Wednesday, it didn't really work. I am blaming this again on the younger age of the kids. Here are pictures of the this craft when it was done successfully over the summer:

Look how cute it was! But, unfortunately, on Wednesday...a totally different story. The littler ones b-lined straight for the paint and, before I was even able to explain what they were supposed to do, they just went at it. So we have: the young and the restless + paint + no direction = A MESS. Then, once the haphazard painting started, it was impossible to get make it go away. Everyone freely painted landscapes, scribbles, and sweepingly long versions of their names. I tried to right it, but they were in too deep. At least they enjoyed it.

*** This is the Early Math Activity Jars from Lakeshore set up for sorting the balls by color:

The kit itself allows you to sort balls, cubes, and pyramids by color, shape, and number. But I decided to keep it simple and just put one kind of sorting activity out. This went over better than I'd expected! In particular, I had a little brother who couldn't pull himself away from the sorting jars.

**** I was really excited about this chromatography experiment! I got the idea for it from the Science Buddies kit that I borrowed from the Suffolk Cooperative Library System. Unfortunately, most of the science experiment stuff in the kit was too old for my crew, but, after a good amount of testing different things out, I was able to take their version of a chromatography experiment and modify it to work for the 3-5's.

Here's how you do the experiment: 

1. Take a piece of paper towel and dip it in water (not until it's totally saturated, but wet enough). 

2. Use a black marker to scribble a big splotch on the paper plate. Not all black markers work! I had two different ones that I used and I found that Mr. Sketch worked the better.

3. Use the wet paper towel to “wipe up” the black splotch. 

4. Wait a few seconds, then watch what happens on the paper towel. 

Spoiler: There are colors! Red and blue and black! It's cool! Here is a picture of some results:

I think the small number of kids that did the chromatography experiment were into it. And I think one or two of them even "got it," like, understood that the point of it was to see that the color black was actually made up of many other colors. Unfortunately, not a ton of kids were interested in trying the experiment, so it went largely ignored. So disappointing!

At the end of play/craft time, I wrapped up with one more stand-by story: Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. This is when the chatty moms were at their chattiest. I actually had to shush them, which is totally awkward for me. Any tips on shushing noisy moms would be greatly appreciated!

What worked least: Ugh! I'd say the hand print color mixing--or lack there of, was probably my biggest disappointment of the program. However, it worked great over the summer! Don't dismiss it! With the right group, it can be a great activity.

What worked second-least: The chatty moms. Please, folks, any tips for shushing them in a non-awkward way would be welcomed. Let me also say that I can't really use a "set up the ground rules at the start of the program" type method. These patrons were late, and, in general, lateness is something I'm pretty easy-going about. What I need is something to-the-point and maybe even funny that I can say quickly, mid-book, to the offending chatters.

What worked best: Time to be positive. Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd and Pete the Cat, I Love My White Shoes by James Dean have always worked well for me. They probably always will work well for me. Can't go wrong with the stand-bys! Also, my new color song from TeachingMama.org was awesome! Highly recommended!